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34Friday May 28, 1999. Mr. Stumphius' letter could therefore not be consideredas being an admission that the 20 Business Day pre-emption period would haveended on May 27, 1999. If he meant to say that, he obviously made an error.61. In its reply, the Claimant maintains its position (C.sub 3, p. 13 and 14), asit is possible on Saturdays in Paris to deposit cheques, sign loan agreements,withdraw cash from a bank, meet the banker and negotiate credit lines. Furthermore,Decree no. 97-326 dated April 10, 1997 provides for the right to openbank branches on Saturdays, with the right for the employees having worked onSaturday to rest on Monday. In addition, a bank could initiate a wire transferand a party could instruct a bank to wire funds on a Saturday but the executionof the transfer would merely be postponed until the first next opening day of thesystem.In addition, time being of the essence in a pre-emption agreement, the time limitof 20 Business Days must be interpreted in a narrow sense as retaining Saturdayas a Business Day.62. The Respondents reply that the labour law regulations only show thatsome banks might open some of their branches on Saturday but that no businesscan be done on Saturday (R.sub 3, p. 10).In addition, the time limit of 20 Business Day should not be interpreted in a narrowsense according to French law but should be interpreted in conformity withwhat the parties intended (Art. 1156 of the French Civil Code). In the case athand, the parties to the General Agreement, the Minority Shareholders as wellas Vision N.V., considered that Saturday was not to be regarded as a BusinessDay.3. Considerations1. The relevant regulations63. French labour law distinguishes between "jour ouvrable" and 'jour ouvr6".A "jour ouvrable" is a day which may be legally worked and is usually translatedinto English as "business day", "workable day" or "working day", whereas a'jour ouvre" is a day actually and collectively worked in a given company and ismost of the time translated as "worked day" or "day of work".From a French labour law point of view, Saturday should be treated as a BusinessDay as the sole day during which work is prohibited is Sunday.Moreover at the time the General Agreement was entered into Iorganisation of the working hours in banks was governed byREBUMIV41pursuant to which two consecutive days off per week w``o be granted to °tiA02338488/0.31 /16 Oct 2002V COIiR: 1NTER.NATIONALE Q'ARB{TRAGE WCOURT OF ARBITFATION 1GFyAl'J AL CHAMBER 0COQ40`